just hold onto me i'll hold onto you
by goneonelsewhere
Summary: With you I shall share my burden, and together we shall walk our road. (Post 3.11)


"How long?"

There are looks exchanged, full of anxiousness and wariness and all things Yang hates but in that moment understands, she'd be the same if it were any of them, and Blake squeezes her hand once. "You should just focus on healing first, your arm—"

"I know, I know. But I can't just sit around staring at the wall, all day. I need to know. While it's super sweet of the princess to lend me a hand… literally—"

"Yang!" Three voices ring out together.

"-it's easy to tell it's tiring her out. She can't do it forever." Yang looks up at Blake, her sister, Weiss, her anticipatory, faintly jocular smile fading at the sight of overbright eyes. "Sorry. Too soon, huh?"

"It's fine. Well, not fine but." Taking a long breath, Blake shakes her head, finally giving Yang's question an answer. "They said, once your Aura's done making," Blake's voice cracks, and her fingers tighten around Yang's before going on, "what repairs it can, and is back up to normal, they said they can start on getting measurements and calibration."

"So then…?"

"They think two weeks, give or take."

"Arright! Not too bad. How about when I can get back to training, did they say anything about that? I'd assume about the same time, but maybe they'll let me work on my legs earlier, 'nd… Blake?"

Blake's shoulders shake unhindered, quiet sobs dripping around her hands and Yang's. For a few seconds, they are the only sounds in that room, before Ruby and Weiss shuffle out, with only a shared glance and nod with Yang. When the door closes behind them, Yang tugs on her hand. Not enough to pull away-not that she would want to-but just enough to catch Blake's attention, gently draw it back to her face. "It's not your fault, Blake."

But she shakes her head, and her ears would have flapped, if they weren't already lying flat against her head. "I-how can you just. Act so normally, already? He _took your arm_." Hiccups cut her words, breaking them apart, and Yang inclines her head unconsciously towards Blake, while she mentally tries to put them back together again. "He hurt you and you were bleeding and it _is_ my fault, if I'd just run or, or, or something, then you wouldn't have been there in the first place—"

"Hey, hey. It's not on you." Yang's face takes on a rueful cast. "If anything, I shouldn't have rushed in like that. Not one of my best moves. And you're not the one who cut my arm off, y'know. What he did, what Adam did, you're not the one responsible for that, he is. It was his choice, Blake. Not yours."

Face solemn again, she tries to _look_ encouragement at Blake, into her. Tries. Blake only shakes her head again. "If I'd stayed with him, with the Fang, then maybe—"

"—then you would have suffered," Yang retorts, red bleeding into her eyes, "And you wouldn't have been my partner. We're hurting now, yeah. But because we hurt together. Not 'cause of some shit we've done to each other. I didn't stab you, you didn't cut off my arm."

"I can't help thinking that maybe if I talked to him before, then maybe things wouldn't have turned out like this."

"You can't save everyone, Blake." Her voice is gentle again, doing her best to soften that truth. "But saving one person, that's more than enough. And when you left Adam and the White Fang, that person was you." Yang taps Blake's nose twice before pulling her onto the bed, encouraging her to sit down, come closer, and when Blake obeys, kneeling in that space beside, Yang worms her hand away.

It settles on Blake's abdomen, fingers tracing over and over again, over the still-healing wound.

There's a faint tremble to them, that barely makes itself known, through cloth and gauze. But Blake feels it. Looks down at them, before there's a flash of light, and she find Yang staring steadily at her, ignoring the tears that trace down her cheeks.

"When you left, you saved yourself. And two nights ago, you saved us both." Her hand curls shut, drops away, and Yang smiles, a wide, wide grin that stamps crow's feet in the corner of her eyes.

"Thank you."


End file.
